You can get away with anything, story-wise, as long as you give the players enough rewards. These rewards become hostages which compel the players to stay. Sure, you can leave the campaign now, but then you’ll never get to use this +50 vorpal sword of awesome that glows like a lightsaber and once a day can be used to create 2d8 pieces of delicious candy.

To clear up this continual confusion: This is NOT the last strip. The comic ends on Friday. You’ll know it’s the end. It’ll say so.

Thanks for this strip, Shamus. Been reloading this page to see when it would come up. Coincidentally, cable TV in my country is showing the whole LOTR series this month – The Return of the King being on this Wednesday – and I had a good laugh in recollecting how different the *actual* movie story was compared to the DM of the Rings campaign!

I love the fact that Aragorn’s happiest about Gandalf leaving Middle Earth forever.

I also love the fact that the players (aside from Gimli, perhaps) are going to end up remembering this as a really great campaign because of all the cool stuff their characters got… in the epilogue, after it matters.

+50 vorpal sword?…can i just say one thing…GIMME!
now i wont say it hasnt been a wild ride and im shure we appreatiate all you have done and furhermore….oh screw it…MORE DM OF THE ( ) PLEASE! honestly we’ll take anything…ok almost anything.

So, two more episodes left, who’s up for predictions about what the last two will be?

My guess:

– Wednesday: The GM makes some shit up about what happens to Legolas or Gimli. (Or actually uses Tolkein’s accounts of what happened to them.) Legolas is impressed. Gimli is nonplussed.

– Friday: Epic comic where Gimli takes the DM to task about his appallingly bad DMing of the campaign, and points out to the other players how he’s just showering them with goodies they can’t do anything with because the campaign’s over.

So, when I watch RoTK, I always think about a scene that I just *know* happened on the set:

Peter Jackson: Hey, Bob, come over here.
Bob, low man on the totem pole: Yes Mr. Jackson?
PJ: I have a very important job for you.
Blmottp: Really? I mean, this is great. I know I’m new here, and I haven’t really been asked to do much, but I promise, whatever you want, I’ll do my best.
PJ: I need you to film a very important scene in the film. Perhaps even *the* climax of the film.
Blmottp: Wow! I never thought I’d get a chance to do something like that! I’m just.. I mean.. I’m… Um… Wait a minute… *The* climax of the movie? That would be the scene where the CGI character has a fight with the invisible Hobbit? So what you want me to do is hold a camera for a while and occasionally shake it?
PJ: Bingo! Here’s your camera, there’s a rock, see you tomorrow.

I was going to wait until the last comic to make my first comment, but what the hell, there’ll be hundreds of comments on that one anyway.

I’m really going to miss this strip, especially your insightful comments about gaming. Though there’s a caveat to the comment you posted today — if you lure a player back with Cool Stuff (TM) then you have to live with the consequences; bringing him back with a +50 vorpal sword that only has one charge (for instance) is cheating and will usually result in overturned tables and bonfires of gamebooks.

Finishing DMotR a year to the day after the beginning is a nice symmetry, Shamus. As someone who has been popping in at least three times a week almost since the beginning (Thank you, Steven Den Beste for tipping me off), I have to agree that it has been a great ride… And I’ll miss it. I look forward to checking out Chainmail Bikini. Thanks for the laughs and good times, Shamus.

I really feel like I’m losing something today. I’ve really enjoyed the comic Shamus. Thanks for all the great laughs, and nostalgia you conjured up with some screencaps and your wit. I’m gonna miss this.

Amazing how many people are so driven to give a poetic farewell that they haven’t even read that this isn’t the last one..

Sept 7th people..

I guess this is why it’s no good to take people to the airport.. you wax poetic about things.. say good-bye.. then the plane gets delayed so you just sit and kinda mumble about stuff.. at least that’s the way it was before 9/11… that’s one good thing about travel now.. it’s now ok to drop people off at the airport without walking them to the plane…

I will miss this comic.. but I have no problem randomly clicking of past ones.. and I can’t wait to see what you’ve done with the Teletubbies!

lol, it’d be really cool if Gimli’s player went on a rant because he got a run-of-the-mill ending. What?! this is crap! I’m never playing a dwarf again, does everyone have an agenda against races with a -2 charisma?!

Just started reading this epic last night and it seems you finished it just in time for me to get to the end! Hilarious stuff, just couldn’t stop hitting Next.

The interplay between funny stuff from LoTR and funny stuff from DnD was brilliant. I also appreciate your notes section a lot, since my DnD experience has been very different from the one described here (no rulebooks, brilliant DM who controls it all on the fly, combat is simple from the technical side and roleplaying/thinking smart is a must to survive).

In case you haven’t noticed, most of the goodbyes have included a “I know this ends on Sept. 7th…” comment in them. Most of the posters know that there are two more comics, but they also know that the last comic is going to be swimming in goodbye comments so they are getting theirs in now.

As for today’s comic, I just can’t see Aragorn’s player being excited about all these great things happening to his character WITHOUT being able to play any of it. My response as a player to this sort of Monte Hall ending would be “sure, great, I’m a king now. What other DM is going to let me bring my army into a campaign? What about some real loot I can use in future campaigns, huh?”